European Union (Amendment) Bill

I certainly believe that we must renegotiate the treaties. This treaty is more important than the Maastricht one. We have waited and seen for far too long. We must stop this caravan and send it back. The issue in Committee will be to decide which articles of the treaty must be renegotiated. The Government must be put to the test, and we must use the time available to be direct and effective in this battle. Today is not exclusively a debate about a referendum, essential though that is, in the national interest. A referendum is the solution to the issue of principle, because political parties, Parliament and much of the media have for so long failed to give proper time and attention to the issue, in the context of the European Union, of the great democratic principle of who governs us and how. I am delighted that the Conservative party and its new leader are firmly behind a referendum. The Labour party was right in 1975—the Foreign Secretary should take the smile off his face—as indeed was Tony Blair on his commitment on the original constitutional Bill, persuaded into it as he was by the present Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Justice. To their shame, they have reneged on both matters. The issue is a matter not only of law, but of policy, economics and sovereignty. It is about the impact on the daily life of every person in this country, in virtually every area of policy. It deals with questions relating to schools, hospitals, public services, local and central Government—through the control over the economy—defence, foreign policy, immigration, business, law and much else besides. The Government stand indicted for their broken promises in relation to not only the referendum, but the red lines and the charter. They also stand indicted on their claims for the success of the European Union—the European Union does not work. Indeed, just this morning we heard the Prime Minister praising our historic ties with India, which, generally speaking, are justified, particularly since democracy has taken root in that great country. However, is the European Union to dictate our economic relations with India? Why should we not develop our own special relationship with India, building on the best of the past and on economic co-operation, and promoting our common resource of the English language, as we could elsewhere in the Anglosphere world and the Commonwealth based on free trade and co-operation. Trade with other European nations is important and can contribute to that process, but it cannot do so with the European Union as a single legislative entity with legal personality, and certainly not with the current customs union. If the holding of a referendum is so important—it is because of the fundamental change involved—it cannot be abandoned merely because the Labour Whips force the treaty on to the statute book. The Leader of the Opposition is right to say that we cannot allow matters to rest if, as is more than likely, a referendum is not won tonight or in Committee. He is right to concentrate on a referendum now and to vote directly against the Bill. He would also be right to commit to a post-ratification referendum in due course, as I urged in my recent early-day motion, which has the support of more than 40 colleagues from the Back Benches alone. That is because a vote born out of deceit on the issue of who governs must be put right. If this Parliament is to be trusted, the people must have their say and Members of Parliament must have the humility to realise that. If the call for a referendum is defeated during the course of the Bill's progress, a referendum in any event will have to be proposed in our manifesto and implemented under a Conservative Government, whether or not other member states have ratified. If France and the Netherlands, not to mention Ireland, Denmark or Harold Wilson in 1975, can with impunity reopen negotiations and reverse decisions already taken, as we have so many other times with other treaties over the centuries, so too can the United Kingdom under a new Conservative Government. We must argue for this in the country with passion and conviction. This treaty is a European manoeuvre. It was concocted by the Eurocrats, by Germany and by France, and by the betrayal of this country by this Government. Some 70 per cent. of those who have recently been asked said that they wanted these merged treaties renegotiated into an association of member states. As Churchill said in Zurich in September 1946:"““We are with Europe but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed.””" That is the line we should take. I put it to the House that in Committee we must demonstrate how much we must leave out of the treaty, which merges the existing treaties, so that we can form a reasoned basis for proposing a proper renegotiation of each sphere of policy and principle contained in the existing treaties, and insist on trade and co-operation in Europe, but not European government. I am not speaking nationalism, but the national interest. Our involvement in global trade must not be determined by European government claiming falsely to speak with one voice. Others have spoken—rightly—of foreign policy, the European presidency, the legal personality and over-regulation, as well as of the red lines and other vital matters, but I conclude with a plea for the supremacy of Parliament, upon which all other matters turn. In amendments to another Bill, whipped in both Houses recently, the Conservative party has already adopted my proposal to override the European Communities Act 1972 and therefore, above all, to require the United Kingdom judiciary to obey that latest law. The supremacy of Parliament, which, I point out to the Foreign Secretary, includes authorising a referendum—something that itself enhances parliamentary authority—must be affirmed in the text of the Bill, because the treaty seeks to infuse the European Union into our constitutional and legal framework, so as to leave little or nothing on which the voters can maintain freedom of choice in our democracy for which so many have fought and died. We must amend the Bill and erect a legislative redoubt that will ensure that the Bill and the treaty, if it were to pass into law, would guarantee the Bill of Rights and parliamentary supremacy, notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972.